How the hell is this giant battleground "meaningful"?
It pulls you out of the normal game world, it has no effect on the real game world, you're fighting in some magical wonderland against alternate versions of your own people for no reason at all... Sorry, but that's just lame.

Although I know you just post these things in order to start arguments, there's at least some chance that others might benefit from some accurate info, so I'll try to help.

The mists don't "pull you out" of anything. You choose to go take part in the WvWvW content any time you want, it's continuous, and you can go back and forth any time you want.

It does actually have effects on the "real" game world (I'm guessing you mean the PvE game world when you say "real"...since I'm not sure why one zone is more "real" than another in your mind). Servers will receive buffs and benefits from winning the two-week matches in WvWvW...that's a direct effect on the PvE game world.

Fighting in some magical wonderland? It's just some zones which are a different part of the world, or a different part of the history of the world.

When you say fighting against "alternate versions" of your own people...are you perhaps thinking about the competitive PvP where all players are automatically scaled to max with full armor, weapons, and skills to create a level playing field? In WvWvW, you bring your character, you have your own armor, weapons, and skills. It's not an alternate version of your character at all.

Maybe I'm just misunderstanding, so you could clarify for me.
Who are you fighting in WvWvW? And for what ultimate aim?

You are fighting players from other servers. The ultimate aim is to win.... to gain prestige for your server, improve your server's record / ranking vs. all others, and to gain benefits for PvE and probably PvP as well.

See, the fundamental difference here is that this PvP will be about the communities of REAL PLAYERS that form on each server, not some NPC faction that you fight for simply because of the race you chose to play. It will be about server pride and being part of something much bigger than a guild. It's a whole different idea than the lore-based faction conflicts where players are delineated through the lore. The idea is to make the PvE game more social, since players won't be cut off from half the races and half the zones just because of their faction choice (can play with friends regardless of their choices), while also making PvP much more of a community-building experience.

If your complaint is that they didn't make some races "Bad" and some races "good", just be aware that the lore of all the races is quite a bit more complex than that...there are conflicts between the races, but the PvE story involves them all grudgingly working together and resolving their differences in order to defeat a common, immensely powerful foe. The PvP game is more about the game of it, rather than the story.

This is why I skoff at it being referred to as "meaningfull".

It just doesn't work for me... If this were racial combat, 3 faction, I'd be all over it. I've read the first GW2 novel, I get the idea of the races working together, but for me I just can't swallow the idea that EVERYONE would fall in line, that there wouldn't be open combat and skirmeshes amongst the groups.

I like the way TSW is handling it... in public they have a kind of truce, they recognize that there's a common enemy out there... they can't fight in the streets because it would be attention to them... but in private, they battle it out to the death.

I guess I would just prefer a "real" enemy... the fighting against other people from an alternative universe just feels off. If this were an MMO based on "Fringe" it would make sense, but it isn't. For me this ends up kinda like space flight in SWTOR... not what it could be, and nothing more than a mini-game.

It's not enough to keep my from playing the game, it's just something I wish they'd have handled better.

How the hell is this giant battleground "meaningful"?
It pulls you out of the normal game world, it has no effect on the real game world, you're fighting in some magical wonderland against alternate versions of your own people for no reason at all... Sorry, but that's just lame.

Although I know you just post these things in order to start arguments, there's at least some chance that others might benefit from some accurate info, so I'll try to help.

The mists don't "pull you out" of anything. You choose to go take part in the WvWvW content any time you want, it's continuous, and you can go back and forth any time you want.

It does actually have effects on the "real" game world (I'm guessing you mean the PvE game world when you say "real"...since I'm not sure why one zone is more "real" than another in your mind). Servers will receive buffs and benefits from winning the two-week matches in WvWvW...that's a direct effect on the PvE game world.

Fighting in some magical wonderland? It's just some zones which are a different part of the world, or a different part of the history of the world.

When you say fighting against "alternate versions" of your own people...are you perhaps thinking about the competitive PvP where all players are automatically scaled to max with full armor, weapons, and skills to create a level playing field? In WvWvW, you bring your character, you have your own armor, weapons, and skills. It's not an alternate version of your character at all.

I'm finding it funny that many of the longtime beta testers (3+ months) are giving honest reviews that the game, although not bad, is very linear, bland and standard, yet there are the fanatics out there (almost everyone else) that continue to tell us we're wrong.

WE TESTED THE GAME EXTENSIVELY, played it a whole lot...trust us, the game is not the second coming of God.

I really like the one guy's review where he mentioned that character customization, i.e. gear and appearance, are extremely limited and/or not done all that well. That is probably one of the worst aspects of the game for me. That and having to listen to EVERY single NPC with a quest (no matter how menial) talk endlessly about the quest and what they need done.

I know and hope that people will have fun with this game, I just wish some would open up their eyes a bit more and realize that this game is neither ground-breaking or epic.

Well, WE TESTED THE GAME EXTENSIVELEY and had a helluva lot of fun, enjoyed ourselves immensely, and plan on playing it for a long time to come.

See that? It's called an OPINION. Everyone gets to have one. You don't like the game, fine, {mod edit}

There is instanced raiding in GW2 the only difference is that you do not raid for gears with stats.

If you want to call instanced raiding with 4 others a raid then by all means do so, but in the normal themepark defenition of the term there is NO INSTANCED RAIDING.You know the type that.....1. with 24 others2. set a schedule to play a game.3. raid lockouts prohibit the time you can actually play4. require preperation and setupMy perfect idea of raiding is in the GW2 sense of the word, the kind that happens impromptu and could happen at any time of the day and requires no organized "elitest" personality who lives his life in his mothers basement, or who is an OWS no job having drag on society. I look forward to GW2's style of raiding and dungeon crawling with close friends.

So, lack of endgame content. Got it. Thanks for the heads up.

Raiding is the only possible endgame content? You're so narrow you could probably look through a keyhole with both eyes. Open your mind.

Raiding is the worst possible endgame content, at least in the current WoW-formula implementation that everyone has been copying and doing to death since later EQ. It's the definition of time sink / grind / artificial barrier put in place solely to keep players paying a monthly fee in between expansions by giving them the illusion of progression.

GW2's endgame is going to be dramatically better than anything that's come before...because they are focusing on allowing players to continue playing the game the way the have throughout the leveling process. There's a tremendous amount of replayability, and great PvP as well. Add to all that the focus on real social play and building a server-wide community rather than running players into small cliques and spoon-feeding them content...and you have a recipe for legit longevity rather than the shallow grind we've been getting for so long.

Raiding is the worst possible endgame content... FOR YOU. That's what so many people seem to overlook. As it turns out, a lot of people really enjoy raiding (I'm not one of them). Just like there's a lot of people who enjoy being healers and tanks.

I downloaded it last night onto my laptop and my pc, no problems at all.

They're giving people plenty of time to download, and if someone misses it because of their connection, well DAMN THEM for not sending out DVD's to everyone! Clearly this game is going to fail because BioWare has dropped the ball!

After watching the Top 10 Reasons to be interested in GW2 from Alexridiculous's Youtube channel for like the 100th time I am interested in hearing what everyones reasons for be hyped for GW2 are. Doesnt have to be in order or be 10 reasons but its fun to hear what fellow enthusiasts have to say about the subject.

My reasons:

1. Active combat

2. No Holy Trinity

3. No Themepark style instanced raiding

4. Art direction is AWESOME

5. Arena Nets philosophy on MMO gaming matches mine more so then any other developer. I cant wait to fork over my $$$ to them lol.

6. Open World, more so then ever a game comes about that promotes exploration and being in the world instead of in an instanced.

7. WvWvW a return to meaningful PvP made famous by DAoC's RvR.

How the hell is this giant battleground "meaningful"?

It pulls you out of the normal game world, it has no effect on the real game world, you're fighting in some magical wonderland against alternate versions of your own people for no reason at all... Sorry, but that's just lame.

Some of you may recognize me (I've been absent for quite some time) as the guy who started the BioWare Star Wars MMO Facts & Rumors thread way back in 2006 I believe it was. I followed the game, did some investigating, and overall just wasted a bunch of time delivering circumstantial evidence. Well the long wait is finally over, and...

MY OVERALL RATING IS: 6.5/10

Getting Started: 10/10 - It's as straight forward and streamlined as can be. There have been no issues 'getting started'

Server selection: 9/10 - This has gotten better over time - though I preferred the color bars that show how full a server is to just a word.

Character Creation: 4/10 - Is there one? Yeah sure. Does it live up to expectations for an MMORPG launching in late 2011? Heck no. It's actually one of the biggest disappointments.

-Body proportions are just awful for the most part, in my opinion. You've got thin, average, football player, and 1 big mac away from a coronary. What's wrong with sliders most modern MMORPG's use to define the body?

-Hair is atrocious. There are maybe a handful of decent options. Pick up a hairstyle magazine, choose some cool ones, get CREATIVE with it. It's STAR WARS. Simply uninspired and sloppy work - sorry to be so harsh but can anyone really defend it?

-Silly restrictions, such as only certain classes can have tattoos, piercings etc.

-Cybernetics are just a write off. They look uncreative, poorly designed, slapped on and ugly. Also, why the heck would cybernetics options add facial hair? What if someone likes one of the options, but hates that stupid mustache it comes with -- for no reason. Is it a cybernetic mustache?

I could go on but... to the rest of the review...

Quest intro: 6/10 - They aren't the most exciting but they're decently written enough. I do think they could have been MUCH more engaging off the bad. I know for certain that I could write a more exciting introduction for each class, so I was a bit sad to see how tame the writers went. Like the opening scene in a movie, this should grab the player a lot more than it did.

Combat: 6/10 - It's a slight step forward from the standard mmo's of yesteryear. Personally, if you want us to feel heroic and go with this combat system, I'd through about 3 times as many NPC's at the players but have weapons deal much more damage so it feels like you're plowing down the enemy and the only time you start feeling the panic is when you're truly outnumbered. CC's already a big part of the game anyway. Don't outnumber a player 3 to 1 and have them pretty much stand around spamming skills while enemies slowly go down. Outnumber the player 5 to 1 with enemies dropping much quicker. That would already make you feel like more of a badass.

Itemization: 6/10 - The FIRST item drop you get in game SHOULD be for your class. Teach new players early about upgrading gear, get them excited and hooked to get more. This never happened to me. Also, a lot of the gear, especially starter gear, is pretty lame. If I'm a havok trooper, shouldn't I get even a weaker set of armor out of the gate? I looked like I was a mechanic or something. Switching out one shirt of the same shirt with slightly different color isn't much fun either. Appearance tab would greatly help here.

Inventory: 7/10 - I like how much space is given to the player and the fact that it's fairly easy to upgrade your inventory, however I do find the pricing is way too steep. It goes from 5K for one row, to 20K for the next row? Ouch.

Character Sheet: 7/10 - It's functional even if a little clunky. Nothing special really, but it serves it's purpose.

Movement: 6/10 - I find the characters run WAY too slow out of the gate, which isn't a lot of fun. Until you get sprint. JUMP is a little weak and could definitely use a bit of a boost. There is no: Climbing, Swimming, Crawling etc, which all makes the world feel less real because we can't interact with it. It's a bit of a shame but sadly standard mmo fare. MMO designers could learn a little something from the platforming gameplay of the UNCHARTED series of games.

Zones: 5/10 - As many others have described including my friends, a lot of the time the zones feel like hallways. Sometimes the hallway is a little thicker in places, but you pretty much always feel like you're in a contained, controlled environment. This pretty much kills exploration for me. It's missing the truly vast and interesting open world feeling. Still, they're decently designed and the art direction of the environments is much better than they are for the characters.

Graphics in game: 6/10 - Artistic Direction for Characters is pretty uninspired. Artistic direction for just about everything else is much better. As far as textures, lighting, etc go, it's pretty standard when compared to any recent MMORPG.

Story Line/Voice overs: 9/10 - Stories are pretty decent - I think many people will be much more impressed them than I am. Not to say I don't enjoy them, I just believe many of them could have been better written, including some of the dialogue such as:

NPC: "Do you know anything about those explosions we've been hearing?"

Player: "I don't know. They must have been explosions."

The MAP: 5/10 - It's functional, but I find myself squinting sometimes. The mini-map can be confusing when icons are really close to each other. The main map only lets you select ONE search request at a time. Trainer, Bank, etc. Why is there no 'Show All' option? Been asking for that for months.

Guild Options: 4/10 - Guild support is fairly weak at the moment. Not a whole lot there yet but I'm sure it's coming.

Crafting: 6/10 - A lot of crafters are NOT going to be happy with this. Personally, I've never been into crafting and SWTOR did not change that for me. However, I do enjoy the companion missions and resource gathering more than in other MMO's for some reason.

Space: 5/10 - I see this space experience as 'Space Combat on Training Wheels.' Hopefully, a robust space adventure system will come later on that ISN'T just single player, and allows players to join their friends aboard one ship, take control of blaster cannons while the pilot does their best to evade the enemy, perhaps there could be an engineering mini-game to fix shields up, etc.

Housing: 5/10 - The only housing in game right now is your ship, which also serves as your transportation of course. There's no way to really make it your own, so really it's just a stage for certain cinematics, a crafting station and bank nearby. It's a clever route to take with housing for now, however without any control over the look of your 'home', it feels lacking. You also have no choice of your ship as it's class bound so if you don't like your class' ship, tough.

Summary of thoughts:

As BioWare’s first MMO, I’m certain it will be a great success. As a fan of Star Wars, BioWare and MMORPG’s, I find the game to be an odd mix of robust and lacking. There is PLENTY of game content to keep players happy for a while, but the question is, what happens when the players have devoured that content?

MMO grinders will whip through the game – they always do. There’s nothing so revolutionary about the game that will slow them. The cinematic storytelling may cause a few players to slow down and enjoy the game but ultimately it’s more or less the same as any MMORPG.

When the powergamers are through with TOR, they will likely look for the next MMORPG and this is where I think BioWare may have fallen short on the design and I hope they prove me wrong.

An audience I don’t think they paid much attention to (perhaps for short term business reasons) are the players who are really looking for extended Star Wars escapism. That would be your role players, your communities who want to build cities and big guild empires together – I know I know, this isn’t SWG. That’s all well and good – but it also doesn’t cater to those fans who WANT that kind of immersion.

Character creation is important to many people, not just role players. Sadly, it’s lacking. Powergamers won’t have an issue with that as they don’t get attached to their characters for the most part aside from how ‘leet’ they are.

There’s very little control over appearance once you’re in the game – something I hear BioWare is working on so we’ll get an appearance tab. That will help – a lot.

There’s VERY little incentive or even ability for people to form in game relationships and build communities. Guild system is very basic. You’ve got your friends list. Your player home is a ship that you can’t customize in any way. You cannot ‘MOVE IN’ to this Star Wars universe in its current state and that’s something I hope they address. Give us a galaxy we can move into and I promise you, we WILL and we’ll stick around a LOT longer than people who want to just consume content, play some PVP then move on to the next hot game.

Perhaps BioWare was so focused on controlling the player experience to maximize ‘fun’ they missed the point of how much fun it is for the players to have some degree of freedom and control over their game experience.

In closing, I believe BioWare still has their work cut out for them if they hope to retain people over the long haul but they will have a great launch.

Thank you for reading - please feel free to ask any questions.

Good write-up. One of the best reviews I've read. Thanks.

Only thing I wonder about is this - you say you weren't impressed wtih the storyline, yet you still rank it 9/10. I find myself in the same boat, i'm not at all impressed with the quality of the writing, but the vast majority of people seem to think it's "amazing"... maybe it's because they've only played MMOs with really bad writing before...

or maybe people just have different tastes than you? You see, just because you don't like something, that doesn't mean that it's "bad". I know, a tough lesson to learn, but someday you'll get it.

To the OP, I completely get where you are coming from on this. After playing the game myself, I constanty find the sidequest dialogue tedious and it throws the pace of questing/leveling way off. It's great for Flashpoints and Class quests and maybe main story arcs, but for every single tiny little quest? It does get in the way.

Oh good god people, slow down and play the game. Why are you and so many more in such a hurry. To be the first to hit end game and bitch theres nothing to do. It baffles me. How does it throw of the pace of questing? It s part of it. the leveling comment, read what I first said.

Not wanting to be slowed down by having to listen to/watch VO/cutscenes does not mean a person wants to rush through the game. That is one of the reasons I had asked earlier in the thread about options to the VO/cutscenes for those that still want the story, but do not want the VO/cutscenes.

It's one thing to take one's time and enjoy the journey, which many of us have missed with the silly pacing of games these days because of all those rushing - but artificially slowing things down is no better than making everything too fast.

There should be an option for those that want to read, those that want to watch, and yes - even that option for those that just want to skip everything...

...providing an option for the last two but not the first kind of sucks. :(

"Not wanting to be slowed down" by the games content is EXACTLY wanting "to rush through the game".

I enjoy levelling characters, and I always end up quitting at endgame because raiding is boring and pointless. I'm guessing that I'll end up leveling 2-3 characters, enjoying as much of the story as possible.

A Franchise MMO running $60-$150 in up front purchase cost and we expected more than a cookie cutter MMO that will reflect STO subs in 18 months? Who'd have thunk? Look at Min system requi. You can almost run this on a think pad so they were clearly going for mass appeal at least in a marketing sense.

Why would you have expected more than exactly what Bioware has told you the game was going to be? It's going to be a themepark MMO with an emphasis on story. Period. They never said anything different. If you like themepark MMOs, as millions of players obviously still do, then this game will be a fantastic game for you. If you don't like themeparks, or are burned out on them, then this is probably not the game for you.

I'm not sure why people are complaining about what this game is when Bioware never said anything other than it being a themepark MMO from the very beginning. Will it be better than most themeparks? In my opinion...definitely. It's the most immersive, engaging, fun themepark I've played since Vanilla WoW, and in my own humble opinion is a more solid game than anything currently on the market as far as MMOs go. If that appeals you people, then I suggest they give it a shot. If it doesn't, then there are other games out there to play. But let's not act like we were deceived into thinking this game was going to be anything other than what it is.

And btw, anybody who actually thinks this game will EVER slip to STO levels in terms of subs is completely out to lunch.

What makes you assume I expected anything from Bioware?

What makes you assume I am complaining?

What makes you assume SWTOR is immuned to decline any more than STO was?

Sorry if I can't get excited for the next chapter in WoW envy. I never played WoW. It doesnt mean as much to me.

I love it when people lie about never playing WoW, thinking that it makes them look cool.

Companions can be sent off the sell your grey items. It is built in game and can be done from anywhere.

I knew this when I wrote the OP and well isn't it kind of silly to have your companion disappear for 60s to sell your grey items when you are close to a vendor and maybe even already browsing his inventory?

That's a perfect example of the polishing difference between a Blizzard product and TOR.

Maybe I'm missing something, but the point is to have your companion clear out your inventory for you when you are far from a city and your inventory is getting full.

In fact there are 2 points here:

The first being the great feature being allowing you to sell grey items from anywhere in the wild. Rated *****

The second being while you can do the first there's no sell junk button on vendors.

I do agree that the lack of the second can look as very minor but I dare saying it's in those kind of thing that you recognize Blizzard and lately Rift polish too. That's what IMHO sets apart, for now, TOR and those 2 games.

@OP: I took the liberty of looking up other posts of yours, what I saw was solely SWTOR/themepark MMO bashing for months and months back, how you'd never end up subbing to a themepark MMO, how SWTOR was and would be fail because it wasn't a sandpark, how immensely you loved SWG... shrug, to me it seems your mind was already made up before you had any playtime at all with SWTOR, in fact I'm stunned and amazed that if it's really the case that you beta tested like that (which was recent thing, I guess?), that you even spend an hour or more in SWTOR given how intensely you dislike themepark MMORPG's.

Well, it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone who has grown to dislike themepark MMO's that much that they'd never sub to one, that if such a person ends up playtesting one he comes - surprise, surprise - to the conclusion that he still doesn't like themepark MMO's

But those are my 2 pennies.

This^

Why even bother testing a themepark game if you prefer sandbox games?

Some people like the OP will never like themepark games, which is just natural, but they also can't grasp the fact that others might just love these themepark experiences. I can tell you this, i still love six flags after visiting them over ten times.

Exactly, and you'll never find me in the sandbox playing with a bucket and shovel.